In drilling wells for oil and gas exploration, there is commonly a reliance on experience or computer models to make simple fluid formulation changes to manage fluid properties and their impact on operations. Some difficulties rise using models, since knowledge of exactly what is in a fluid may be missing. Often, models will not properly anticipate the impact of product additions. In some cases field engineers may do pilot tests, however their capacity is limited to a very few tests. A pilot test is a test or series of tests to predict behavior of an entity, such as but not limited to drilling fluid, and to guide future actions to be taken with respect to the entity. Drilling fluids are often referred to as drilling mud or mud. Pilot tests allow for an evaluation of the effects on an entity from a simulation or addition to the entity. Typically, a pilot test is directed to a sample volume instead of the complete volume of the entity.
The usefulness of such measurements may be related to the precision or quality of the information derived from such measurements. On-going efforts are being directed to improving techniques to enhance the precision or the quality of the information derived from such measurements and to control operations based on the enhanced data.